


Light and Day

by MooseFeels



Series: In the Garden of Your Love [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, Mild Angst, Teenage Castiel, castiel is a debutante, gardener! Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-28
Updated: 2013-05-28
Packaged: 2017-12-13 05:55:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/820782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bruise is ugly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light and Day

Castiel feels jittery all the way home, and he feels nauseous as he sits on his bed.

His parents won’t see it, Gabriel’s off in Tel Aviv, and the staff don’t say anything. They just leave ice and pills and concealer on his desk.

The bruise is purple-brown-yellow and ugly. It goes from under his eye and wraps slightly over his nose and crawls barely down his cheek. It’s tender to the touch. He shakes out a couple of asprin and lays the ice pack over it. Lets the staff know they can have the night off.

After that night a few weeks ago, his parents have become more and more comfortable with leaving him to his own devices. It’s both a relief and a burden. It means the house feels emptier than ever, means that he feels emptier than ever. It means that the falseness around his closet full of unworn clothes and beautiful shoes and books with barely cracked spines becomes so sharp he can’t stand it.

He’s always had so much that he hasn’t noticed how little he’s cared or been cared for.

With his parents gone, though, it means that he can see Dean far more easily.

Dean fills him. Dean fills him with flowers and their names, fills him with words about cars, fills him with his broad and beautiful knowledge of folklore and mythology. Dean teaches him how to cook and how to do his own laundry and how to sew on buttons. Dean gives him a warmth in his body like being bound to the sun.

He’s dreading seeing Dean though.

His room is cool and dry. It is warm and humid as he opens his window and looks out over the property. The grass is green. The flowers are riotous in their bloom. The trees are healthy and dark leaved. Sprinklers will make their graceful grey arcs of water later, in the night.

Castiel re-latches his window and goes down to see Dean.

Dean is older than he is by four years, but there was a hardness to the way he lived before and it is written on his body. He first found it not too long ago- Dean had stripped of his shirt on a particularly warm day. It was a long scar, wide against his hip. Thick and pale, like a worm under his skin.

Castiel doesn’t ask and Dean doesn’’t tell him. There are things that have happened to Dean in his twenty years that have hurt him and aren’t done hurting him.

He’s elbow deep in the thyme that ran under his cottage windows when Castiel approaches.

“Hey, angel,” he begins as he turns around, and then he sees the black eye and becomes very quiet.

He walks to meet Castiel and cups his face in his hands ( _his broad, warm hands that smell of herbs and dirt_ ). Dean touches the bruising very gently, expression serious. “Have you taken anything?” He asks, gravely, suddenly.

“Just asprin,” Castiel answers. “It’s what the staff left for me.”

“Who?” Dean asks. “Who did this?”

“No one important,” Castiel answers. “No one worth getting angry about, I swear. They do this sometimes, it’s okay. They’re suspended until the end of the year and when they get back, they’re up for disciplinary review. I’ll probably never-”

“Come inside,” Dean says, tugging Castiel toward the cottage. “I think I’ve got lemonade or something.”

Castiel lets himself be pulled inside. Dean starts knocking around in the kitchen, leaving Castiel to sit on his couch and listen to Dean’s distant singing.

For all of the flowers that he cultivates and for all of the flowers that he sends Castiel, Dean’s house is conspicuously absent of them.

“Why doesn’t your house have any flowers?” Castiel asks.

“Pardon?” Dean asks, sticking his head back into his sitting room.

“Why don’t you have any flowers?” Castiel repeats.

Dean shrugs and pops back into the kitchen. “I don’t know,” He answers. “I guess I was just never much of the flowers type of guy.”  He comes back into the living room with two tall glasses of lemonade. He hands one to Castiel.

“But the ones you grow are so lovely,” Castiel says. “And the ones you send me are beautiful.”

Dean takes a sip of lemonade. “I don’t raise them for _me_ ,” he says. “I mean, they’re my job. But they also…jeez, they also make  _you_  happy, okay?”

Castiel smiles. He scoots down the couch a little and lays his head on Dean’s shoulder. “You’re very kind, do you know that?” he says.

Dean shook his head. “Naw,” he replies. He shifts, and Castiel looks up.

Dean leans forward and kisses him, very gently but very deeply. Kisses him and the pain  _almost_ goes away.

He tastes of citrus and sweetness and sunlight.


End file.
